Mistake #5 Rinsing off the Starch
Even if you use gallons and gallons of water to cook your pasta, there will still be starch coating the pasta strands. So, you end up rinsing your pasta. Then, when you serve it, you end up with a pool of sauce under the pasta.
The Fix—Don’t Rinse
Yes, you will still have starch on your pasta after draining. This is just the nature of pasta—it is wheat-based, and wheat contains a starch. While you will pour a goodly amount off in the cooking water, a little starch is a very good thing.
Since starch is sticky, your sauce will stick to the pasta better if you don’t rinse it. The only exception to this is if you are making a cold pasta dish, such as a pasta salad. You can rinse the pasta with cold water to keep it from overcooking.
Even so, I would advise undercooking the pasta by just a hair, and adding the sauce ingredients to the pasta while it is still hot so that the pasta will absorb the sauce. Then, once the pasta is cool, add the rest of your ingredients, such as vegetables, meats and cheeses.
Tim
I agree with most of what you said, but lately I’ve been doing the trick of using less water and sometimes starting in a cold pot as mentioned on SeriousEats.com. You end up with a higher starch percentage in the water, which helps your sauce. The only downside is that you have to be attentive when the pasta is put in the pot, you can’t just throw it in and go do other stuff.